


and darling, it was your hand I hold

by brookeluvsdogs



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: Fix-It, Gibson's Real Name Is Philippe Hugo Guillet, I feel like someone kisses someone else's hands in every fic I write, M/M, Post-Canon, and no I will not apologise for it.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23086528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brookeluvsdogs/pseuds/brookeluvsdogs
Summary: The time between the boat and the train had been blurry. The sea salt drying Tommy stiff. Not just his uniform either, his whole body felt gritty with salt, sand, and sleep. The slick oil and the weight of the men left behind sitting heavy on his tired shoulders.
Relationships: Gibson/Tommy (Dunkirk)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 46
Collections: "don't look at me like that"





	and darling, it was your hand I hold

**Author's Note:**

> hands r inherently homosexual, thanks for listening to my ted talk

The time between the boat and the train had been blurry. The sea salt drying Tommy stiff. Not just his uniform either, his whole body felt gritty with salt, sand, and sleep. The slick oil and the weight of the men left behind sitting heavy on his tired shoulders. He hadn’t slept on the boat as he saw a few other men do. Wondering how they didn’t see the darkness that was lit suddenly by the ocean being set aflame; man, plane, boat, and ocean lost to Greek fire projected like a film on the backs of their eyelids.

The only thing he took comfort in was the warm body of the man stuck to his side. It meant more to him than the saving of his own life, that the other man had made it out of that dank, death trap of a boat hull. Tommy looked at him now, sitting opposite him in the train car, chin pressed to his chest – body compacted into an uncomfortable slumber. His heart was struck with a match as longed to know the man’s name.

Alex had made it out, too. But the guilty looks he’d been throwing at the pair of them, the last one cast as he shuffled away with his new highlander mates, made Tommy sure they wouldn’t be seeing much of each other anymore. He wasn’t particularly bothered with it. Alex reminded him of a schoolyard bully. Never the one to start fights, always on the sideline waiting to latch onto whichever side would be the winning one. Still, his absence was strange after having stuck together over the last week. Their trio suddenly becoming a duo.

Eventually, the train’s rumbling lulled had him into a slumber. Tommy did not dream. He was only awake, and then he was not, and now he was again. He had fallen asleep with his head pressed to the window leaving his eyes no defense against the rising sun. His companion had had more luck, his back pressed to the window shielding him. Tommy watched the early morning light settle in the French man’s hair, dried an unruly curl from the sea salt. In theory, he looked the same as he had all week. But, something about being safe softened the sharp, mysterious edges. Tommy wanted nothing more than to know more about him.

Not just his name. But where he lived, about his family, his childhood, his favourite colour, favourite part of the day, how he took his tea (or was more of a coffee drinker?), what kind of clothes he wore. The intricate ins and outs of his being.

The brunet stirred in his sleep, muttering a few words in French, before slowly fluttering his eyes open. Tommy looked away quickly, ashamed of staring.

“Morning,” his voice groggy with sleep, thick accent cutting through the word.

Tommy still felt shocked not hearing an English cadence come from his mouth. They had only spoken a few words the night before; quiet and hushed, still keeping a secret. He gave a small, tense smile back – a question rolling in his mouth. A big question, a floodgate question. He decided to get it out and over with.

“What’s your name?” he blurted, the words tumbling over each other. The other man frowned at him and Tommy let more words fall from his mouth. “It’s just you never said, I mean, I assume it’s not Gibson. Unless it is, then I know already of course but i-“

He cut off when the brunet’s face cracked into a smile, a small chuckle coming from the back of his throat. Tommy marveled at the melody of it. The sound lifted the fluttering in Tommy’s ribcage to his collarbones where they sat threatening to make their ascension.

“Not Gibson,” he laughed again. “Philippe.”

“Philippe,” Tommy nodded as the name rolled off his tongue. It sounded perfectly right, as if he had known the name all along but only just been given permission to use it.

A silence fell over them again. Not a heavy one, but it wasn’t quite comfortable either. Tommy didn’t know what to say, he had had to stop himself from introducing himself back in reply. Realising just in time that Philippe was well aware of his name. He looked down at his hands, at the oil clinging on to the undersides of his fingernails. Oil that he felt he would never truly be rid of. He had tried, in vain, for a full hour to scrape them clean. He glanced at Philippe’s hand, (the one resting on the table between them, he wouldn’t dare look at the one the other man’s head rested on) and noticed his were the same. Blunt and black.

Tommy thought, for what must have been the hundredth time, how he wished things could have been different. How he wished to have known his name, his story, his life, earlier than now. Before the beach, before the boats, maybe even before the war. He had found himself wondering these things a few times during the previous weeks but, now that they were safe (or _safer_ , at least) his imagination held him in a vice-like grip. To have heard that laugh without it tinged with war would have been a blessing from the highest power.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, accent heavy, the jovial tone leached from his voice.

“Like what,” Tommy said this honestly. He didn’t know he had anything other than neutrality written on his face. Although, without meaning to he had shifted his gaze from Philippe’s hand higher and higher until they had met his gaze.

“Like it could have happened differently,” came the biting reply. 

Tommy looked down at his hands to avoid Philippe’s eyes, absently picking the oil stuck under his nails. “Maybe it could have.”

“No, Alex-,”

Tommy felt anger bubble at his chest, butterflies turning to wasps, “I’m not talking about Alex! You could have told me!” the words left his mouth in a hushed aggression, he wished instantly to take them back.

“I was only trying to survive,” Philippe said, the bite in Tommy’s words not seeming to have affected him.

“We all were.”

The silence fell again, heavy this time – electric. Tommy’s eyes fixated on his hands again. He didn’t really know why he was angry now. Surely the time and exhaustion should have swept it under the collar. Yet he felt it hot on his cheeks as he frowned at his twisting hands. Then, as the red climbed, another set of hands came into view.

Caked in oil, calloused and rough, Philippe’s hands crept towards Tommy’s until the index finger of his right hand was resting on Tommy’s restless one. A wave of relief washed over the silence, Tommy’s fidgety hands becoming still. His vision focused on the skin contact, slowly removing the blurry anger. Cautiously, he splayed his fingers out and watched them tangle carefully in the other man’s, still not meeting the gaze he could feel boring into his face, the heat from the anger replace by the warmth of Philippe’s eyes on him.

“It is the past,” Philippe’s gentle words, the heavy accent, sending a shiver through Tommy’s skin.

He then lifted their hands; Tommy followed their path right to his mouth where Philippe kissed the back of his hand. He watched with parted lips as his heart skipped a beat, the soft lips a contrast to the rough hands. Absurdly, Tommy wondered how they could be so soft when the sea and wind had left his chapped to hell. Philippe left their hands twisted together on the table as he leant his head back on the window to catch more, well-earned sleep.

All the anger, all the exhaustion and worry slowly ebbed from Tommy’s tired bones. He slumped over on the table, resting on his arm, propped up so he could see their paired hands and Philippe resting peacefully all in one glance. He let the rumble of train track carry him to sleep once more. This time he did dream, no nightmares in sight.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: eggsyjpg
> 
> the title is from 'The Days' by Patrick Wolf


End file.
